Why You Should Drink Wine Out of a Real Wine Glass

Remember when you made the life transition from red plastic cups to real glasses? It was probably around the time you started spending more than $5 for wine (not that there’s anything wrong with $5 wine). Fancy dinner nights became a thing, and your taste buds grew happier and happier. While that had something to do with better food and drink in general, we’re also betting your new glassware helped out A LOT. Proper stemware can be the difference between bland wine and dynamic, delicious wine.

We’re a pinkies-down kind of place, but we have to admit that stemware matters.

Disclaimer: Serving wine in red plastic cups is a right we all sometimes exercise. It’s inevitable when you’re hosting large groups. Who on earth is going to buy multiple sets of stemware, worry about broken glass all night, then wash all those glasses at the end of the night? Some things matter more than the nuances of your Chardonnay.

GLASS VS. PLASTIC: NO COMPARISON As a material, plastic is porous and contains chemicals. It interferes with the aroma and the flavor of wine so much that it makes the wine taste blander, more vinegary and tarter than it really is.

Styrofoam, as you can imagine, has similar problems. Even if you don’t immediately recognize the “off” taste, your taste buds will tell your brain what’s going on, and you may find that you’re not in the mood for a second or third cup.

WINE GLASS VS. CUP: IT’S ABOUT MORE THAN GOOD LOOKS The shape of the average plastic cup or drinking glass is one-dimensional. Wine is anything but one-dimensional (even $5 wine).

A tumbler-style cup or glass doesn’t allow the aroma of the wine to reach your nose, which “flattens” the taste of the wine. Go eat your mom’s chocolate chip cookies with your nose pinched. It’s sad, isn’t it? You might as well have bought stale vending machine cookies.

So the pretty, curvy shape of a wine glass is what projects the aroma into your nose and saves you from that disappointing, pinched-nose experience. There’s a lot of cool science that goes into designing the perfect wine glass, but for most of us, all that matters is that we’re drinking out of any wine glass.

OUR PROMISE TO YOU For all of the reasons above, every Pinot’s Palette studio commits to providing real wine glasses to its guests. It’s one of the details we believe helps makes your paint and sip experience as amazing as it can be. It matters so much to us, we don’t even mind doing the dishes at the end of the day.